Rescue
by trufflemores
Summary: 3.15. Barry saves Wally twice. He is only successful once.


" _Barry!_ " Wally screams, thrashing in the grip of the Speed Force. " _Help me!_ "

Barry doesn't think or breathe or hesitate; he _lunges_.

 _I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming_ , Barry entreats, charging forward. He catches Wally's flailing wrist and feels a drag like a riptide tugging at him, but he digs in his heels and hauls Wally closer. "Grab onto me," he pants, and he turns on his heel and _runs_ before he can confirm Wally has a grip on his neck.

Speed Force strains against him, a magnetic pole adjoining opposites. Barry thinks, _Don't fail me_ as he pits his own strength against it. He pulls, a draft horse heaving at its bonds, rebellion in every beating pulse of his heart. _C'mon, c'mon,_ _ **c'mon**_.

Wally has a chokehold around his neck and Barry can hear him roaring, resisting. He doesn't let up, keeps running until he is certain that he is going to burn through the soles of his boots. Then he draws in the deepest breath he can and lunges once more, leaping with sled dog urgency away from the break in the ice, and suddenly they are free.

Barry can't see, can barely breathe, and they crash into a wall and pain splinters deep into his bones, an abject, blinding thing as stars shatter across his vision. Oh, _ohhh_ , he clutches at his right shoulder, already searching in a daze for Wally. Wally, groaning but _here_ , oh-thank-God, and Barry breaks partially free from the metal rod he is impaled upon and promptly passes out.

He awakens too soon, thrashing. Sensors scream nearby. He can barely hear Caitlin over the noise, the white noise the red noise the all-consuming black roar of a shore he cannot see. _It'll-be-fine-you've-survived-worse,_ he tells himself, and Caitlin tells him what he already knows and he nods frantically, just-do-it-just-do-it-oh-God—

"Bite down on this," Joe instructs, and he lunges upward and clamps down hard on the roll of gauze. His teeth ache with the force of it, his mind consumed by the blinding thrashing pain as four sets of hands hold him down and Caitlin _yanks_ the bar out of his shoulder.

He screams at the top of his lungs, and then his vision whites out, plunging him deep beneath the surface, to a place where pain is a residual, processing thing and he is a transient being unattached to his own uncooperative limbs.

Pain draws him back to awareness. He slides a hand across his bare chest to hold the injury, a fresh bandage drawn across it, and oh, _oh_ , it's so sore. He hears a tiny noise and turns his head, grimacing as the slight movement tugs at his shoulder. Caitlin bites down on her lower lip, ashamed and afraid. "How long was I out?" he asks, and his throat hurts, and his mouth hurts, too.

"Not long," she replies. _Not long enough_ goes unspoken. "Are you in much pain?" she asks.

Barry rubs the wound very, very gingerly. He can't himself to vocalize it. _I'm okay_ falls deeply flat. _I'll be fine_ is similarly hollow. "Where's Wally?" he asks instead, looking around, and he spots the other speedster in a bed in the opposite room and feels his heart plunge. Trying to sit up, he halts, tears forcing their way past closed eyelids as he attempts to regain control.

"It's okay," Cisco tells him, hand on his knee, "he's just resting. There were some pretty bad burns, but he's healing."

"Not as quickly as you do," Jesse notes.

Barry turns his head painfully to regard her. Then he rasps, "Take my Speed. It'll help."

"Bar." Joe. He closes his eyes; it's easier than looking at him. "You need it."

"I have more than enough," Barry says, rallying support from nowhere. He opens his eyes and looks determinedly at Caitlin. " _Please._ Just take some. Take some…" Holding onto consciousness is a feat. His shoulder burns intensely, like an infected wound. God, he just wants to sleep.

He hears Caitlin sigh before she says, "Okay."

"How do we—?" Cisco asks.

Barry replies, "Bring him to me."

It only takes two minutes to wheel Wally into the room, his suit fused with him, melted and broken. Barry reaches out and rests a hand on Wally's wrist, the same he yanked to take back what wasn't the Speed Force's, and he lets the magic flow.

It's like emptying an ocean, waves upon waves upon waves, gentle and persistent, relaxing Wally's features, and his vision goes gray and his world broken, the end of a bad radio connection, before he finally moves his hand aside, but he is so weak he cannot even lift it from Wally's bed.

He can't open his eyes to observe his handiwork, but he tries to take the contented breathing beside him as a good sign.

With a whimper, he succumbs.

. o .

The ache is phenomenal this time, a deep, punishing thing that brings tears to his eyes, and he's screaming before he can stop it, startling everyone. "Easy, mate," Julian says in a let-us-sleep way, gruff and thoughtful at once, the machines beginning to go haywire.

He can't relax, straining, aching, yowling in pain. Get-it-out-get-it-out-get-it-out- _please_.

There's nothing left to take, he knows, but it doesn't stop the urgency, does nothing to quell the anguish and agitation. He moans and twists and listens to the machines scream for attention.

"Oh, God," he gasps, trying to sit up, to relieve the pain by relieving the pressure, but it doesn't work that way, of course it doesn't, it makes it _worse_ , and tears stream down his face unabated.

He feels Joe haul him into a hug and it hurts, it hurts, _Dad, please_. He muffles his sobs against Joe's shoulder, holding onto the back of his jacket, a prolonged, unstoppable torment pouring out of him. It never passes but he runs out of strength, his shaking limbs the final sign of his resistance to pain, an animal within clawing at its cage.

"You're okay," Joe tells him, right there, he can feel it in his chest, and he starts to believe it. "I've got you."

He sniffs and stays where he is, letting Joe's comfort bleed into him, breathing as steadily as he can. "Hurts," he mumbles to a shoulder, knowing – hoping – no one else can hear him. Joe cups the back of his head.

"I know," he says. "I know. It's okay."

It takes a long time – too long – for him to finally relax back. He isn't relaxed – the pain is unrelenting, too fresh to be muted by the Speed Force circulating torpidly through him – but he is limp, unable to hold himself up. He hears someone clear their throat and looks up, a relief so deep it hurts sinking into him. "Wally," he breathes.

"Hey," Wally replies, and there are still traces of burns on his face but they already look better, especially now that the suit isn't on him. Just a STAR Labs' sweater and sweats, and Jesse at his side, an arm around his waist to hold him up. "Thank you," he says sincerely.

Barry doesn't even try to sit up. "Of course," he says instead. "Any time."

Wally says, "We'll let you get some sleep," and Barry is proud to see him strong.

 _The Speed Force can't have you,_ he thinks, his next breath like his last, a soft, fading exhale that trickles into tomorrow.

. o .

He's cold and it's late and he can hear someone snoring nearby.

Barry's eyes open to slits but no farther as he looks at Joe seated in a chair. Wally, Jesse, HR, and Julian are nowhere to be found. Caitlin and Cisco, he dimly notices, are in the main part of the cortex, exchanging soft conversation. He wants to join in, to ask what's on their minds, but even breathing is a chore, and he doesn't want to wake Joe.

Or, he realizes, Iris, who isn't sleeping at all but is watching him instead. "'ris…" he breathes.

She rests a hand over his. "Hey."

He lifts an inquisitive eyebrow. Even that much feels like too much.

"Wally's okay," she says.

Something in his soul relaxes.

"Kinda stupid," he admits quietly, and she brushes a thumb over the back of his hand curiously. "Can stop the Speed Force but can't escape a stationary wall."

Iris sighs and reaches up to cup half his face. "Barry Allen," she says. She needn't say more. He knows. He knows.

Her hand glides to his eyes, covering them. "We still have to talk," she explains, and he worries about that, but she still has the ring and he has to hope it'll be okay. It'll be okay. "But for right now you need to _rest_."

The gurney isn't big enough for two. He finds room anyway, with gentle, halting gasps. "C'mere," he tells her gruffly, and she has to all but lie partially on top of him to make it work, and he doesn't mind at all. "Iris," he sighs fondly, holding her, a healing that has nothing to do with lightning sinking from her skin into his. "Iris…"

Barry opens his eyes.

A cold, empty room greets him.

It all comes back to him – his own cowardice and failure to act, Wally's death, the end of the engagement, everything, everything – and he can't help the sob that escapes him.

His shoulder hurts worse than before and he thinks, _Because I gave my Speed to Wally_ , but he didn't.

Because Wally died. And he didn't do a damn thing to stop it.

Gasping, aching, he pushes himself upright. It hurts and it's hard and he aches for company, but he's also glad to be alone. It helps focus him. It helps give him a mission.

 _I'm gonna get him back,_ he resolves with sudden unquenchable resolve. _I'm gonna …_

He gets his legs over the side of the gurney, takes a shallow breath, winces when his feet touch the floor. Ohhh, he's sore, and he wants to crawl into a nice warm blanket and hide for the rest of the week, the month, the year, but he has a mission.

One part of the dream remains intact: Cisco and Caitlin are in the cortex, speaking quietly, when he walks in.

"I'm going after him," he tells them in a voice that is sandpaper thin.

Cisco stares. Caitlin says softly, "Barry."

He limps over to his suit. There's a massive tear in it. Doesn't matter; he won't need it where he's going. Just the crossing-over. The moment of contact. Then he'll disappear, too, and nothing will matter.

"I have to," he tells them, broken, choked-up, because he broke everything, but maybe – maybe he can fix it.

 _Maybe_.

His shoulder aches deeply, but he keeps his resolve as he pulls on the suit. He even keeps it to say, "If I don't come back …" Then his throat closes, and he cannot speak for a moment, overcome. "Tell Iris and Joe I love them. Please."

Caitlin squeezes his elbow gently. Cisco says quietly, "You're coming back."

Barry shakes his head silently, a wordless admission that he might _not_ be.

When he takes off running, he hears Cisco in his ear, assessing his Speed until he is simply too fast for the sensors to feed back adequate data. His shoulder hurts so much it almost yanks him down, but he persists, and persist, until at last he breaks through, disappearing, dissolving, disembarking utterly.

 _Welcome to the Speed Force_ , he thinks, as everything – body, mind, being – go blank.

. o .

He doesn't know how long it takes to find Wally. Time doesn't exist here. Or, rather, _all of it_ exists here, meaning there is no forward movement or past regression. All is stillness. Or, conversely, all is _motion_. Every movement that ever was, or ever will be, is here.

But after he meets the three ghosts, he finds the fourth he came looking for, and there is a heartbreaking moment when Wally looks at him, utterly blank, and he reaches out and Wally takes a step back.

Then, frowning, Wally asks, "Flash?"

Barry reaches for him and Wally lets his hand connect with his elbow. "I'm here," he breathes, and he sounds as tired as he feels. "It took me too long. But I'm here. I'm gonna get you home."

Wally tenses. "Home?"

Barry nods, focusing, because it's a word with meaning, but it's also a word that is impossible to define, and he needs clear boundaries if he's going to succeed.

 _Joe,_ he thinks, but he only has the idea of a hug, the faint impression of warmth, years immemorial passing. He can't even remember – _Cisco, Caitlin_ – and feels fear building in his chest. He grasps blindly at nothing for something, Wally at his side, one hand on Barry's wrist, now, cautiously optimistic, a sort of childish hope in his eyes redoubling Barry's determination.

 _Home,_ he commands, and he closes his eyes and he sees it, sees _her_ , the future they could-have-would-have-may-never-have, and he aches, and he longs, and he resists succumbing, too.

Then he allows himself to succumb totally, breathing a single word into the dark, unrelenting space.

" _Iris_."

When he opens his eyes, they're standing on the outskirts of the city, and Barry sways and Wally falls to his knees.

"We did it," he breathes, a hand on Wally's shoulder, reaching up with a fumbling hand to press his comm. "Cis … Cisco," he pants. "Cisco. I have him."

There's silence on the other end of the line, and he panics quietly for a moment, wondering if he didn't in fact choose the wrong universe altogether, or if they simply never escaped, Speed Force can become anything, when a staticky voice replies. " _Barry?_ "

"Cisco," he repeats more strongly, "Cisco, we're here. We made it."

It only takes the inside of twenty minutes for the rescue party to arrive, hauling the exhausted speedsters into the van. Jesse sobs into Wally's chest as he sits propped up, dazed, a hand in her hair but his eyes a mile away, and Barry worries and wonders and tries to stay above the waves.

 _Don't sink,_ he frets, afraid that it will all become a dream if he does.

But fatigue drags him down first, and below the waves he drowns.

. o .

They're back at Joe's, and Barry has never been more grateful for his childhood bed or the simple, peaceful sounds of three other people resting easy nearby. Joe, snoring audibly even from this distance; Jesse and Wally sharing their attic room, never once out of sight. He aches for them, for their happiness, for their suffering, and startles when he feels someone slide under the sheets beside him.

He doesn't move, doesn't breathe, doesn't say a word when Iris shuffles up behind him, wrapping an arm around his waist. He doesn't break the silence. He just holds his breath and exhales slowly, and sinks back underneath.

. o .

In the morning, healing will start, and the world will not be at peace, and their lives will still struggle on.

But with Iris tucked against him and Wally safely home, Barry finally feels that whatever happens, if those two things remain constant, it'll be okay.


End file.
